The present invention relates to a method and system for evaluating options, and to a computer readable medium for programming the system in accordance with the method. More particularly it relates to evaluating options which have been rated along one or more subjective dimensions. (By “subjective dimension”, sometimes hereinafter “dimension”, herein is meant a characteristic of an option which can only be rated as a matter of opinion, e.g. style, or imprecisely estimated, e.g. useful life or resale value; so that the judgment and skill of the parties rating the options are important in evaluating the options.)
Often people must choose between a number of options which, in at least some respects, cannot be compared objectively. That is, the choice among the options is based, at least in part, on subjective dimensions of the options. In such cases it is desirable to make evaluations that properly account for all available information. Existing sources of such information include; periodicals published by third parties, e.g. “Consumer Reports”, files of vendor supplied information, collected opinions of previous users, etc. Such sources can be maintained as local hard copy files, for scanned or manual input, or as electronic databases, maintained either on a user's system or on a network such as the Internet or a local network. (Hereinafter all such information sources are referred to as “type 1 databases”. More precisely, by “type 1 databases” herein is meant any source of such information which can be accessed by the system of the present invention, either as digital files or by manual or scanned input, and which rate at least one option of interest to a user along at least one dimension of interest to the user.)
While useful, such existing sources leave the user dependent upon the objectivity and reliability of their authors and editors. Furthermore, they do not provide the user with a mechanism for combining multiple sources.
Thus it is an object of the subject invention to evaluate database ratings of a plurality of options along one or more subjective dimensions, and to combine ratings from a plurality of databases into an overall rating.